SegWit2X Cancelled – Scenarios and Investors Perspective

I have reported on the planned fork on the 16th November. It has been cancelled now. Honestly, I do not know what to think about the news. Bitcoin Cash had a similarly rocky history. However, Bitcoin Cash was announced a few days before being forked, instead of being cancelled. I will outline possible scenarios for the cancellation and as usual outline the investor’s perspective at the end.

Scenario 1: It Is a False Move

We are subjected to news every day. This is rather a long shot, but it could be possible that the people changed their mind again. The ones that brought about the cancellation news, could as well change their attitude once more tomorrow and just go for SegWit2X again. From a technical perspective, there is nothing blocking them. Could be. Could not be. In case this turn out to be a false move, the Bitcoin price would definitely take a roller coaster ride.

Scenario 2: SegWit2X Is Coming

Since my background is technical, I am aware that in case only one single person would fork away from Bitcoin, SegWit2X would be out. Despite that the big players have announced their cancellation, other miners (the ones confirming transactions) may not agree with them. Or other miners would decide that they just stick with the plan. Thus, they would go ahead and confirm transactions for the new Bitcoin (“Bitcoin2X”) on 16th November. This would make Bitcoin2X go live.

The result would be a similar one to Bitcoin Cash back in August. The problem might be a low network power for confirmation of transactions, resulting in tremendously slow transactions. In the first hours of Bitcoin Cash that literally shutted down all transactions. After more people joined the network, it stabilized itself.

All forks, cancelled or executed, will ultimately deal damage to the reputation of all crypto currencies.

Scenario 3: SegWit2X is a Stillbirth

Maybe SegWit2X will never be used, no transactions will be executed. With the current statements of the big players, this scenario is quite likely. I do not like it.

As a software engineer, I am telling you now, that such a stillbirth would just postpone an upgrade of Bitcoin. There are just too many unconfirmed transactions out there, which means too few transactions are verified every 10 minutes. For you, that means that your transaction will either be expensive or take long to go through. Long-term, this or a similar update has to be implemented.

My Attitude

In all cases, I definitely would like to state: All forks resulting in a split of a coin, cancelled or executed, will ultimately deal damage to the reputation of all crypto currencies! I really do not like the current situation. It shows us that there is – again! – a small number of people apparently ruling over everything in this network. However, I stress the word apparently, since I think we all have at least the power to take part in the Bitcoin network and have a true valuable voice here – unlike our beloved politics.

Investor’s Perspective

I still recommend moving your funds to HitBTC as I explained in the special post about SegWit2X. You can get them out after 16th November. This is just in case the fork will still happen. After the 16th November, I recommend mid and long-term investors moving the Bitcoin out to the private wallet.

An important remark could be, that the price of Bitcoin is likely to raise quicker now from day to day. More and more people know about the cancellation and the Bitcoin community is forced to be united for the moment.

Any questions – let me know in the comments. In case you decided now to start with Bitcoin, just contact me and we can have a chat 🙂